Front Forks Setup

Lack of Rebound

Symptoms:

    * Forks are plush, but increasing speed causes loss of control and traction
    *

      The motorcycle wallows and tends to run wide exiting the turn causing fading traction and loss of control.
    *

      When taking a corner a speed, you experience front-end chatter, loss of traction and control.
    *

      Aggressive input at speed lessons control and chassis attitude suffers.
    *

      Front end fails to recover after aggressive input over bumpy surfaces.

Solution: Insufficient rebound. Increase rebound "gradually" until control and traction are optimized and chatter is gone.

Too Much Rebound

Symptoms:

    *

      Front end feels locked up resulting in harsh ride.
    *

      Suspension packs in and fails to return, giving a harsh ride. Typically after the first bump, the bike will skip over subsequent bumps and want to tuck the front.
    *

      With acceleration, the front end will tank slap or shake violently due to lack of front wheel tire contact.

Solution: Too much rebound. Decrease rebound "gradually" until control and traction are optimized.

Lack of Compression

Symptoms:

    *

      Front-end dives severely, sometimes bottoming out over heavy bumps or during aggressive breaking.
    *

      Front feels soft or vague similar to lack of rebound.
    *

      When bottoming, a clunk is heard. This is due to reaching the bottom of fork travel.

Solution: Insufficient compression. Increase "gradually" until control and traction are optimized.

Too Much Compression

Symptom:

    *

      Front end rides high through the corners, causing the bike to steer wide. It should maintain the pre-determined sag, which will allow the steering geometry to remain constant.

Solution: Decrease compression "gradually" until bike neither bottoms or rides high.

Symptom:

    *

      Front end chatters or shakes entering turns. This is due to incorrect oil height and/or too much low speed compression damping.

Solution: First, verify that oil height is correct. If correct, then decrease compression "gradually" until chattering and shaking ceases.

Symptom:

    *

      Bumps and ripples are felt directly in the triple clamps and through the chassis. This causes the front wheel to bounce over bumps.

Solution: Decrease compression "gradually" until control is regained.

Symptom:

    *

      Ride is generally hard, and gets even harder when braking or entering turns.